Jessica D. Harris - Development Writing Sample - August 2012

Jessica D. Harris Development Writing Samples

The following collection of work comprises a mix of both creative and report-­‐based writing that showcases my ability to change communication styles dependent on the audience, yet still connect with the mission-­‐based interest that brought the organization and audience together in the first place.

Contents

Event/Marketing Collateral – The Benefits of Corporate Sponsorship

I worked with a graphic designer to create a concise way to engage corporate sponsors for our annual gala. By creating key messaging that communicates the value-­‐add of partnering with our organization, companies have a clear understanding of their impact. This piece will also serve as marketing collateral for our corporate partnership team on an on-­‐going basis.

The Year Up Insider*

I recognized an opportunity to steward our existing and future donors in a creative way through a bi-­‐monthly, e-­‐blast that is compact and impactful. It packages the message of the larger organization in an engaging way and puts donors right in front of what matters—stories about our students and how donors can get involved!

Kaiser Permanente Grant Application

As part of my initial role at Year Up Atlanta, I crafted several grant applications and letters of inquiry to large, funding institutions whose missions strongly align with that of Year Up. This excerpt was part of a larger application that opened a new funding opportunity at the $25,000 level.

Targeted Annual Appeal to Year Up Mentors*

While Year Up was consistently reaching donors through general mail and e-­‐mail appeals, I saw an opportunity to engage a specific subset of volunteers who spend the most time with our young adults. Mentors already give a large portion of their time and are emotionally invested in our students. Specifically addressing our mentors was an opportunity to share new ways of how they could be involved and impact the lives of their mentees.

*Please note that these excerpts were formatted for the web and do not have page breaks in the original formatting

Other B e ne f its o f Corporate n ership Corporat e Part Part nership

Year Up Atlanta is just three years old, but is already creating win-win business solutions for Atlanta’s premier companies.

By connecting Atlanta’s businesses to young talent, we are able to diminish the number of unfilled, entry-level positions in companies, increase employment among the 50% of inner city youth that are unemployed in Atlanta, and reduce the public burden of high unemployment by creating pathways to family-sustaining careers for young adults.

As a corporate partner, your support provides professional skills development, technical training and mentoring for young adults in their transition from economic instability and stagnation into professional careers. By getting involved with Year Up Atlanta, your company helps to ensure that: • At least 85% of Year Up Atlanta graduates find employment within four months after graduation • Year Up graduates’ earning potential will increase by 30% in just one year • Year Up Atlanta will expand to transform the lives of 50% more young adults by 2014

However, our corporate partners can lend more than just financial support for Year Up and its students. In addition to the invaluable financial support, we also need individuals from within companies to share their professional expertise to aid the development of our young adults. There are group, individual, long-term, and short-term opportunities to positively impact a young person’s life in preparation for their entry into Atlanta’s corporate world. Opportunities include the following: • Mentoring • Guest Speaker - sharing knowledge across a wide range of professional and technical topics • Judging Student Presentations • Professional Clothing Drives • Mock Interviews • Resume Writing Clinics • Participate in Events: Walk for Opportunity, Bi-Annual Graduations, and the Opportunity Ball • Individual/Corporate involvement and recognition tied to any aspect of Year Up that supports your corporate brand

We look forward to your participation in powerfully impacting a young adult’s life— helping them to demonstrate their potential and embark on a professional career!

730 Peachtree St. NE, Suite 900, Atlanta, GA 30308, 404.249.0300

Testimo nial s Test imoni als What Our Corporate Partners Say:

What Our Students Say:

“ When GE Energy decided to take its helpdesk services up a level to help GE employees increase productivity, we formed a service modeled after Apple’s instore counter. When designing it, we quickly turned to Year Up to engage their students to staff this walk-up helpdesk. Year Up was an essential element of our success with this program.”

“ Year Up gives a voice to those who aren’t given the chance to speak for themselves. Before my time in the program, I was going through the worst time of my life and spent months just searching for the opportunity I knew I deserved. Year Up opened their doors to me and gave me the chance to have my voice heard. They taught me the skills and gave me the confidence to go after what I wanted. I now have an amazing career, and I can even go back to college. I look forward to watching Year Up grow and continue to influence our community.”

– John Seral, Chief Information Officer, GE Energy

“ We find partnering with Year Up to be very rewarding.

Year Up interns are smart, enthusiastic and open to new experiences. In addition to our providing a first corporate experience for the interns, they receive valuable training and mentoring from the Year Up organization. That extra assistance helps these young people contribute more during their internship and sets them up for future successes in life.”

– B ecky Blalock, Former SVP & CIO, Southern Company

– Kenneth Goyens, Vice President, Online Fraud Detection Group, SunTrust Bank of Georgia

– Kasanji Baxter, Information Services Manager at SunTrust Bank

“ My mentor, Luci, supported me at a critical time when I was arriving late every day. We came up with a plan together. She worked with me and stayed on top of my progress daily. She encouraged me and was very easy to talk to about anything. She never judged me and was always there when I needed her.”

– T amara Sansom, Year Up Graduating Class of July 2010 & Service Management Specialist, New York Life

“ My most memorable experience would be seeing our Year Up interns flourish with full-time employment with SunTrust; for example Gabrielyn Gworlekaju, Anthony Franklin and Ursula Tucker have all proven the value of the program.”

“ I realized how special Year Up was after my first week of being there. Everything that was set before us was nothing that I had seen or heard before. Not only were we given skills to navigate through the corporate workforce, but we were also given Life Skills. No other program cares to help develop a young adults’ whole self.”

– A ustin Murphy, Year Up Class of July 2010 & Help Desk Analyst, Kaiser Permanente

“ My most memorable Year Up moment is when we offered a Year Up intern a position within my department due to her hard/smart work and the commitment that she exhibited during her internship.

I will never forget the look on her face as she was truly appreciative of the opportunity.”

– Shannon Wroten, Year Up Class of January 2010 & PC Support Specialist, The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

“ My most memorable Year Up moment was when I realized that I was a leader. As President of Class Five, I realized I had a voice that could influence others through my words and deeds.”

– Tashea Mosley, Year Up Class of January 2012 & Admninstrative Assistant, WorldPay

730 Peachtree St. NE, Suite 900, Atlanta, GA 30308, 404.249.0300

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SEE the Change.

HEAR the Change.

BE the Change!

April is National Community Service month and our students want to share why it is so important in their lives!

Keep reading to find out how they embody the iconic Mahatma Gandhi mantra, BE the change.

SEE how Year Up students define what Community Service and Building Community mean to them!

Above, Josselyn, Class Six Intern, networks with volunteer judges after presenting her business proposal, a final project, to the group.

At Year Up, volunteers enrich the lives of our students both in and outside of the classroom!

VOLUNTEER!

Impressed? Send our students some words of encouragement to keep up the good work!

HEAR how Year Up students directly IMPACT their communities and why they love to volunteer! (click picture)

Want to join the conversation? Leave a note for our students about your volunteering experiences!

Promotion Headline BE the Change for Year Up and Atlanta!

I would love to volunteer in one or more of the following ways!

Be a guest judge for a student presentation on April 12th Walk with us in Solidarity for the 2012 Walk for Opportunity!

Help Plan our Annual Gala, The 2012 Opportunity Ball!

Donate Clothing, Organize a Food Drive, Be a Guest Speaker!

For more information about these and other ways you'd like to volunteer, please contact Jessica Harris at jharris01@yearup.org.

Be sure to check the next Year Up Atlanta Insider for more details!

Year Up's mission is to close the Opportunity Divide by providing urban young adults with the skills, experience, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education.

Click here to learn more!

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Year Up | 93 Summer Street | 5th Floor | Boston | MA | 02110

EXCERPT: KAISER PERMANENTE GRANT APPLICATION III. Project Narrative Succinctly describe the grant’s purpose, and the target population it will serve.

Year Up Atlanta believes all young adults deserve the opportunity to develop their full potential. Unfortunately, all too many young adults—4.3 million nationally, 23,000 locally—are in danger of not achieving personal and professional goals because they are “disconnected”—unemployed or underemployed and not pursuing post-secondary education.

Year Up is a one-year intensive training and corporate internship program designed to assist disconnected young adults to become change agents of their lives, families and communities. Our mission is to close the Opportunity Divide by providing them with the skills, experience and support to empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Our students, ages 18 to 24, come from metro Atlanta as well as five surrounding communities (Cobb, Dekalb, Gwinnett, Fulton, and Clayton), have a high school diploma or GED, but are otherwise disconnected from opportunities within the economic mainstream.

They also often reside in areas of concentrated poverty.

While Year Up has experienced strong success in providing young adults with the support, confidence, and hard and soft skills necessary to navigate the corporate world, we know that a successful workforce should not only be technically and emotionally prepared, but should also be prepared to make informed decisions regarding the health of themselves and their family. Although eighty-five percent (85%) of Year Up students graduate and receive employment and/or are enrolled in post-secondary education, much of the attrition experienced by the organization is due to students experiencing health issues that require them to end their participation in the program.

Year Up students are an extremely driven and eager group, who are determined to change the course of their lives for themselves and for their families. In order to join Year Up, students must complete a month-long admissions process designed to test applicants’ motivation. As a result of this rigorous admissions process, Year Up students’ motivation to change is very high, and introducing important health information during this critical Stage of Change1 would only bolster their decision-making skills in regards to career and health. Making healthy choices and taking advantage of lucrative career opportunities are important for young adults, as these decisions will affect the rest of their lives.

This Kaiser Permanente Grant would address the priority area Developing and Disseminating Knowledge by introducing a health literacy and health promotion curriculum2, by increasing industry knowledge on how health literacy and health promotion curriculum can enhance workforce development programs3, as well as by advocating for young adults through smart, effective public policy. Through this grant, we propose to directly affect the positive health outcomes of our students by: •

•

•

1

Introducing a health promotion curriculum focused on prevention of health issues that our demographic of students face.

We believe our students are at a critical Stage of Change4 to receive this information so that they are empowered to make important health and career decisions that will ultimately set them on a path to economic self-sufficiency; Examining the results of this pilot health promotion program as a basis for permanently introducing a health component to Year Up Atlanta as a part of our rigorous growth model. At full capacity, we will be able to serve 320 students annually; and, Creating advocacy tools (e.g. toolkits, fact sheets) that illuminate the importance of unique, multi-faceted prevention strategies for young adults and that impact strong, public policy initiatives locally.

Prochaska JO, Norcross JC, DiClemente CC. Changing for good. New York (NY): Morrow; 1994. p. 304.

2

Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. “Health Literacy is the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Approximately one-half of the adult population may lack the needed literacy skills to use the U.S. healthcare system. Low literacy has been linked to poor health outcomes such as higher rates of hospitalization and less frequent use of preventive services.”

3

Berkman ND, Sheridan SL, Donahue KE, Halpern DJ, Viera A, Crotty K, Holland A, Brasure M, Lohr KN, Harden E, Tant E, Wallace I, Viswanathan M. Health Literacy Interventions and Outcomes: An Updated Systematic Review. Evidence Report/Technology Assessment No. 199. (Prepared by RTI International—University of North Carolina Evidence-based Practice Center under Contract No. 290-2007-10056-I.) AHRQ Publication No. 11-E006.

Rockville, MD. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. March 2011. “Priorities in advancing the design features of interventions include testing novel approaches to increase motivation, techniques for delivering information orally or numerically, "work around" interventions such as patient advocates; determining the effective components of already-tested interventions; determining the cost-effectiveness of programs; and determining the effect of policy and practice interventions.”

4

Prochaska JO, Norcross JC, DiClemente CC. Changing for good. New York (NY): Morrow; 1994. p. 304.

Prepared: Jan ‘11

EXCERPT: KAISER PERMANENTE GRANT APPLICATION What community health issue will this grant address? Cite statistics (and source) to demonstrate need.

“Good health involves reducing levels of educational failure, reducing insecurity and unemployment and improving housing standards. Societies that enable all citizens to play a full and useful role in the social, economic and cultural life of their society will be healthier than those where people face insecurity, exclusion and deprivation.”5 We serve an extraordinary group of young adults, who have overcome a myriad of environmental, emotional, and educational challenges, but who are determined to change the trajectory of their lives. Increased income and higher levels of education can directly effect a person’s living standards, and subsequently improve their access to better quality food and housing, leisure-time activities, and health-care services.6 Year Up aids students not only with the technical skills needed to successfully begin new careers, but also indirectly improve students’ health by helping them to attain a level of environmental stability necessary to achieve their goals. While we are able to help students find better housing, reliable child-care, and to gain access to minimal health services, this Kaiser Permanente grant will allow Year Up to directly affect the health of our students and further bolster our holistic approach to leveraging professional opportunities. We want to provide important health information to our students so that when 85% of students who complete the program and experience the access afforded them through stable incomes and higher education, they will then be able to make informed decisions about their health—both from a preventive and a pro-active standpoint.

Year Up serves students at least 133% below the poverty line and is comprised of 48% female students and 90% students identifying as African American. These statistics alone point to groups of individuals who disproportionately have greater barriers to healthcare access, have greater risks for and burden of disease compared with other populations, have a higher prevalence of certain conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and other chronic diseases, as well as have decreased knowledge about symptoms for conditions that greatly affect their communities (e.g. heart disease, stroke).7 Results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Across the U.S. (REACH U.S.) underscores “the need for communitybased approaches that include policy, systems, environmental, and individual-level changes.”8 This grant would allow our organization to introduce important tools to increase Year Up students’ health literacy, general health knowledge and prevention strategies at the individual level and in a group setting.

In a recent study in the United Kingdom, the authors concluded that, “...low levels of health literacy often mean that a person is unable to manage their own health effectively, access health services effectively, and understand the information available to them and thus make informed healthy decisions” and that “...improving the health literacy of those with the worst health outcomes is an important tool in reducing health inequalities.”9 A pilot intervention that addresses health literacy and health knowledge is an important barrier to remove as the students we serve continue on their path to personal and professional success.

While Year Up Atlanta has an impressive record of success improving students’ earnings through professional and educational attainment, we are currently not addressing the disparity in health literacy and knowledge that our students experience, which hinders their ability to make healthy decisions for themselves and their families now and in the future. Informal data from prior classes indicate that approximately one-third of students drop out of the program attributable to external reasons largely related to poor health and/or violence. Below, we share an example of a Year Up student who experienced tragedy that ultimately impacted his performance.

Robert, a 21-year-old African American male Year Up student, had a long history of substance use but was motivated to complete Year Up. He excelled in classroom instruction and was poised to enter a corporate internship. Unfortunately, a few weeks before his internship, Robert began using drugs again. During meetings with Robert to assess next steps, he shared that he had witnessed the murder of a best friend and reverted to substance use as a coping mechanism. His substance use precluded further participation in Year Up and he was encouraged to seek treatment.

If Robert had access, knowledge, and the ability to more effectively utilize health services available to him, he might have been able

5

WHO (2004). Social determinants of health. The solid facts. Edited by Richard Wilkinson and Michael Marmot. 2nd Edition. WHO: Geneva: 2004.

6

CDC. CDC Health disparities and inequalities report---United States, 2011. MMWR 2011;60 (Suppl).

7

CDC. Surveillance of Health Status in Minority Communities --- Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Across the U.S. (REACH U.S.) Risk Factor Survey, United States, 2009. MMWR 2011; 60 (SS06); 1 – 41.

8 9

Ibid.

von Wagner, C., Knight, K., Steptoe, A., & Wardle, J. (2007). Functional health literacy and health promoting behaviour in a national sample of British adults. J Epidemiol.Community Health, 61, 1.

Prepared: Jan ‘11

EXCERPT: KAISER PERMANENTE GRANT APPLICATION to address his highly distressing experience in a way less detrimental to his health and his future. Since our students have a high degree of trust for Year Up staff and because they are at a critical Stage of Change10, we have a real opportunity to infuse important health knowledge into a group of young adults, who are at a critical time period in their lives for several reasons: • The majority of our students belong to minority groups, who are disproportionately affected by negative health outcomes. 11 • The age-group of students we serve have begun to age out of many federal, state, and non profit programs dedicated to improving not only their health, but programs that also address poverty issues and general stability. The average onset of mental health issues is age 14 and if untreated, can greatly deter or eliminate achievement of personal and professional goals in the future.12 Young adults, ages 19 to 29, also represent one of the largest segments of uninsured people in the United States13, making it even more imperative that young adults know how to successfully navigate the health care system, while also implementing preventive strategies in their own lives.

• The Year Up program requires openness to learning new emotional, professional, and technical skills. As a result, many of our students’ behaviors change drastically over the course of our program. According to the Stages of Change Model, introducing health information is a critical first step on the road to creating healthy habits and presents an opportunity to build a strong foundation for future, positive health behaviors.

We believe that in order to truly fulfill our mission to close the Opportunity Divide, it is imperative that we address major barriers confronting students on their road to becoming successful, young professionals. In this case, poor health outcomes are consistently a barrier to students completing the program, and ultimately to increasing their professional and corporeal well being. Our goal is to help students become stewards of their health and to learn how to access care that will, in turn, increase their ability to meet and exceed employers’ expectations and improve their long-term prospects for health.

Kaiser Permanente encourages collaboration among community groups. Describe any organizations you will partner with for this project.

Year Up Atlanta currently or will work closely with the following organizations as part of this project: • Metro Atlanta YMCA: We will work with the YMCA as a referral source for students who need health, exercise and wellness resources for themselves and families • Morehouse School of Medicine • Ben Massell Dental Clinic: We currently partner with this clinic to provide direct dental services for our students • Families First: This organization provides additional counseling services for our students and are also a family and parenting resources for our students who may need additional support • Grant Park Clinic, Southside HealthCare, Good Samaritan Health Clinic: These clinics provide direct health services to our students, who often do not have sufficient health insurance coverage • Georgia Lions Lighthouse: This organization helps us to provide eyeglasses and vision care

10

Prochaska JO, Norcross JC, DiClemente CC. Changing for good. New York (NY): Morrow; 1994. p. 304.

11

National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2008 With special feature on the health of young adults. Hyattsville, MD. 2009.

12

Child Advocacy Clinic Symposium: No Place to Live: The Housing Crisis Facing Youth Aging-out of Foster Care. Fall, 2008. 23 St. John's J.L. Comm.

477.

13

S. R. Collins and J. L. Nicholson, Rite of Passage: Young Adults and the Affordable Care Act of 2010, The Commonwealth Fund, May 2010.

Prepared: Jan ‘11

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Gifts made before July 27th will be announced at the Class Six Graduation (Click Here to RSVP)!

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Year Up Atlanta | 730 Peachtree St. | 9th Floor | Atlanta | GA | 30308